% 






,47 . c 



:* / 



*feV* 










*°°. ... .V' 









«*0* 







»5" 












c,' A 



• * <G' ^ 

.0* ♦•"-•♦ ^ 



<> *<TV 
















.vafts*. V>* .it&fa-. v^Vdttf- V.^ .^^ 






- ^ov* 







.-♦• 4* v "\ '.IBs** ^"V ; . 










^9 

O *o • i • A <* */^ r 




• a& <%, *•.?• A <. ♦ 

.0* .•"•♦ "*b 4> «»"•• *<» 






r +6 






••/ \-Wpj> v*^V "V^^V 




*'./ 









/..^.% >*\.j55^.X /.c^.^o 








~«3=iSM=#&-' 



The South: Her Peril, and her Duty, 




/& ®o§©®[ro 



9 



DELIVERED IN THE 



first presbgtman C^nrcl). 



NEW ORLEAJNTS, 



ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1860, 



BY 



Rev. B. M. PALMER, D. D. 



NEW ORLEANS: 

PRINTED AT THE OFFICE OF THE TRUE WITNESS AND SENTINEL. 



1860. 



^ _ ~«34§^»- *$m 



. 






COKPvESPONDENCE 



New Orleans, Nov. 29, 1860. 
Rev. and Dear Sir : We doubt not that the discourse delivered by you 
this morning was influenced by a high sense of duty and responsibility. You 
felt that the times demanded its utterance. Many of us heard it delivered ; 
others have been informed of its tenor. As your fellow citizens, we desire 
for your own sake that your views may not be misunderstood or misrepre- 
sented ; for the community's sake, that it may see patently before it an argu- 
ment squa r ely up to the occasion; for the nation's sake, that the opinions of a 
representative man may be read and pondered. We ask you for a copy, that 
it may be immediately published and widely circulated. 
With sentiments of the highest regard, 

we remain your fellow citizens and friends, 



William A. Elmore, 
W. R. Miles, 

J. J. MlCHIE, 

J. R. Macmurdo, 
Thomas E. Adams. 
B. S. Tappan. 
R. P. Hunt, 
H. D. Ogden, 
A. C. Myers, 
David Bridges, 

A. A. Kennett, 
John A. French, 
John G Gaines, 
William W. King, 

B. M. Pond, 

Thomas Allen 



William G. Austin. 
John Claiborne, 
W. Rtjshton, 
A. C. Henslet, 
A. R. Ringgold, 
William Bell, 
Robert Ward, 
Thomas Hunton, 
Charles A. Taylor, 
Levy Pearce, 
J. W. Watson, 
W. Henderson, 
S. Z. Relf, 
M. M. Simpson, 
C. Bell, 
Clark, 



Rev. B. M. Palmer, D.D„ New Orleans. 



New Orleans, Nov. 29, 1860. 

Rev. B. M. Palmer, D.D. 

Dear Sir: The undersigned, members of your congregation, believing 

and sympathizing in the sentiments of your eloquent address, delivered on 

this, 29th inst., thanksgiving day, and that it should be read by every citizen 

of the United States, beg you to furnish a copy for publication, and oblige 

respectfully, . > ' ' 

Your obedient servants, 



H. T. Lonsdale, 
A. H. Gladden, 
R. B, Sumner, 
H, W. Conner, Jr. 
W. B. Ritchie, 



Edward Dillon, 
George 0. Sweet, 
William P. Campbell, 
Robert A. Grinnan, 
S. W. Dalton. 



New Orleans, Nov. 29, 1860. 
To Messrs. H. T. Lonsdale, R. B. Sumner, A. H. Gladden and others ; and 
to Messrs. W. A Elmore, W. G. Austin, W. R. Miles, and others : 

Gentlemen: That two communications should be received from different 
sources, requesting my discourse of this day for publication, is sufficient 
proof that I have spoken to the heart of this community. The sermon is 
herewith placed at your disposal, with the earnest desire that it may contrib- 
ute something toward rallying our whole people to the issue that is upon us. 
Respectfully and gratefully yours, 

B. M. PALMER. 



THANKSGIVING SERMON, 

DELIVERED IN THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN* CHURCH, NEW ORLEANS ON 
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, I860, BY 

REV. B. M. PALMER, D.D. 



Psalm xciv, 20. — Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which 
frameth mischief by a law ] 

Obadiaii 7.— All the men of thy confederacy have brought thee even to the border • 
the men that were at peace with thee have deceived thee, and prevailed against thee '■ 
they that ate thy bread have laid a wound under thee ; there is none understanding 
in him. 

The voice of the Chief Magistrate has summoned us to-day to 
the house of prayer. This call, in its annual repetition, may he 
too often only a solemn state-form ; nevertheless it covers a mig-hty 
and a double truth. 

It recognizes the existence of a personal God whose will 
shapes the destiny of nations, and that sentiment of religion in 
man which points to Him as the needle to the pole. Even with 
those who grope in the twilight of natural religion, natural con- 
cience gives a voice to the dispensations of Providence. If in 
autumn " extensive harvests hang their heavy head," the joyous 
v.aper, " crowned with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf,'' lifts 
his heart to the " Father of Lights from whom cometh down every 
good and perfect gift." Or, if pestilence and famine waste the 
earth, even pagan altars smoke with bleeding victims, and costly 
hecatombs appease the divine anger which flames out in such 
dire misfortunes. It is the instinct of man's religious nature, 
which, among Christians and heathen alike, seeks after God— 
the natural homage which reason, blinded as it may be, pays to 
a universal and ruling Providence. All classes bow beneath 
its spell especially in seasons of gloom, when a nation bends 
beneath the weight of a general calamity, and a common sorrow 
falls upon every heart. The hesitating skeptic forgets In weigh 
his scruples, as the dark shadow passes over him and lills his 
soul with awe. The dainty philosopher, coolly discoursing of the 



forces of nature and her uniform laws, abandons, for a time, his 
atheistical speculations, abashed by the proofs of a supreme and 
personal will. 

Thus the deVout followers of Jesus Christ, and those who do 
not rise above the level of mere theism, are drawn into mo- 
mentary fellowship ; as under the pressure of these inextinguish- 
able convictions they pay a public and united homage to the 
God of nature and of grace. 

In obedience to this great law of religious feeling, not less 
than in obedience to the civil ruler who represents this com- 
monwealth in its unity, we are now assembled. Hitherto, on 
similar occasions, our language has been the language of 
gratitude and song. " The voice of rejoicing and salvation was 
in the tabernacles of the righteous." Together we praised the 
Lord "that our garners were full, affording all manner of store ; 
that our sheep brought forth thousands and ten thousands in 
our streets ; that our oxen were strong to labor, and there was 
no breaking in nor going out, and no complaining was in our 
streets." As we together surveyed the blessings of Providence, 
the joyful chorus swelled from millions of people, " Peace be 
within thy walls and prosperity within thy palaces." But, to-day, 
burdened hearts all over this land are brought to the sanctuary 
of God. We " see the tents of Cushan in affliction, and the 
curtains of the land of Midian do tremble." We have fallen upon 
times when there are " signs in the sun, and in, the moon, and in 
the stars ; upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; 
the sea and the waves roaring ; men's hearts failing them for 
fear and for looking after those things which are coming" in the 
near yet gloomy future. Since the words of this proclamation 
were penned by which we are convened, that which all men 
dreaded, but against which all men hoped, has been realized; and 
in the triumph of a sectional majority we are compelled to read 
the probable doom of our once happy and united confederacy. 
It is not to be concealed that we are in the most fearful and 
perilous crisis which has occurred in our history as a nation. 
The cords which, during four-fifths of a century, have bound to- 
gether this growing republic are now strained to their utmost 
tension: they just need the touch of fire to part asunder forever. 
Like a ship laboring in the storm and suddenly grounded upon 
some treacherous shoal — every timber of this vast confederacy 
strains and groans under the pressure. Sectional divisions, the 
jealousy of rival interests, the lust of political power, a bastard 



ambition which looks to personal aggrandizement rather than to 
the public weal, a reckless radicalism which seeks for the sub- 
version of all that is ancient and stable, and a furious fanaticism 
which drives on its ill-considered conclusions with utter disre- 
gard of the evil it engenders — all these combine to create a por- 
tentous crisis, the like of which we have never known before, and 
which puts to a crucifying test the virtue, the patriotism and the 
piety of the country. 

You, my hearers, who have waited upon my public ministry 
and have known me in the intimacies of pastoral intercourse, 
will do me the justice to testify that I have never intermeddled 
with political questions. Interested as I might be in the progress 
of events, I have never obtruded, either publicly or privately, my 
opinions upon any of you ; nor can a single man arise and say 
that, by word or sign, have I ever Bought to warp his sentiments 
or control his judgment upon any political subject whatsoever. 
The party questions which have hitherto divided the political 
world, have seemed to me to involve no issue sufficiently mo- 
mentous to warrant my turning- aside, even for a moment, from 
my chosen calling. In this day of intelligence, I have felt there 
were thousands around me more competent to instruct in state- 
manship ; and thus, from considerations of modesty no less than 
prudence, I have preferred to move among you as a preacher of 
righteousness belonging to a kingdom not of this world. 

During the heated canvass which has just been brought to so 
disastrous a close, the seal of a rigid and religious, silence has 
not been broken. I deplored the divisions amongst us as being, 
to a large extent, impertinent in the solemn crisis which was too 
evidently impending. Most clearly'did it appear to me that but 
one issue was before us; an issue soon to be presented in a form 
which would compel the attention. That crisis might make it 
imperative upon me as a Christian and a divine to speak in 
language admitting no misconstruction, Until then, aside from 
the din and strife of parties, I could only mature, with solitary 
and prayerful thought, the destined utterance. That hour has 
come. At a juncture so solemn as the present, with the destiny 
of a great people waiting upon the decision of an hour, it is not 
lawful to be still. Whoever may have influence to shape public 
opinion, at such a time must lend it, or prove faithless to a trust 
as solemn as any to be accounted for at the bar of God. 

Is it immodest in me to assume that I may represent a class 
whose opinions in such a controversy are of cardinal importance? 



The class which seeks to ascertain its duty in the light simply of 
conscience and religion ; and which turns to the moralist and the 
Christian for support and guidance. The question, too, which now 
places us upon the brink of revolution, was in its origin a ques- 
tion of morals and religion. It was debated in ecclesiastical 
councils before it entered legislative halls. It has riven asunder 
the two largest religious communions in the land: and the right 
determination of this primary question will go far toward fixing 
the attitude we must assume in the coming struggle. I sincerely 
pray God that I ma}' be forgiven if I have misapprehended the 
duty incumbent upon me to-day; for I have ascended this pulpit 
under the agitation of feeling natural to one who is about to 
deviate from the settled policy of his public life. It is my pur- 
pose — not as your organ, compromising you, whose opinions are 
for the most part unknown to me, but on my sole responsibility — ■ 
to speak upon the one question of the day ; and to state the duty 
which, as I believe, patriotism and religion alike require of us 
all. I shall aim to^peak with a moderation of tone and feeling 
almost judicial, well befitting the sanctities of the place and the 
solemnities of the judgment day. 

In determining our duty in this emergency it is necessary that 
we should first ascertain the nature of the trust providentially 
committed to us. A nation often has a character as well defined 
and intense as that of the individual. This depends, of course 
upon a variety of causes operating through a long period of time. 
It is due largely to the original traits which distinguish the stock 
from which it springs, and to the providential training which has 
formed its education. But, however derived, this individuality of 
character alone makes any people truly historic, competent to 
work out its specific mission, and to become a factor in the world's 
progress. The particular trust assigned to such a people be- 
comes the pledge of the divine protection; and their fidelity to it 
determines the fate by which it is finally overtaken. What that 
trust is must be ascertained from the necesities of their position, 
the institutions which are the outgrowth of their principles and 
the conflicts through which they preserve their identity and inde- 
pendence. If then the South is such a people, what, at this junc- 
ture, is their providential trust ? I answer, that it is to conserve 
and to perpetuate the institution of domestic slavery as now existing. 
It is not necessary here to inquire whether this is precisely the 
best relation in which the hewer of wood and drawer of water 
can stand to his employer ; although this proposition may per- 



haps be successfully sustained by those who choose to defend it, 
Still less are we required, dogmatically, to affirm that it will 
subsist through all time. Baffled as our wisdom may now be, 

in finding a solution of this intricate social problem, it would 
• nevertheless be the heighl of arrogance to pronounce what 
changes may or may not occur in the distant future. In the 
grand march of events Providence may work out a solution un- 
discoverable by us. What modifications of soil and climate may 
hereafter be produced, what consequent changes in the products 
on which we depend, what political revolutions may occur among 
the races which are now enacting the great drama of history: 
all such inquiries are totally irrelevant because no prophetic 
vision can pierce the darkness of that future. If this question 
should ever arise, the generation to whom it is remitted will doubt- 
less have the wisdom to meet it, and Providence will furnish 
the lights in which it is to be resolved. All that we claim for 
them and for ourselves is liberty to work out this problem 
\ guided by nature and God, without obtrusive interference from 
abroad. These great questions of providence and history must 
have free scope for their solution; and the race whose fortunes 
are distinctly implicated in the same is alone authorized, as it is 
alone competent, to determine them. It is just this impertinence 
of human legislation, setting bounds to what God only can re- 
gulate, that the South is called this day to resent and resist. 
The country is convulsed simply because "the throne of iniquity 
frameth mischief by a law." Without, therefore, determining 
the question of duty for future generations, I simply say, that loi- 
ns, as now situated, the duty is plain of conserving and transmit- 
ting the system of slavery, with the freest scope for its natural 
developement and extension. Let us, my brethren, look our duty 
in the face. With this institution assigned to our keeping, what 
reply shall we make to those who say that its days are numbered ? 
My own conviction is, that we should at once lift ourselves, in- 
telligently, to the highest moral --round and proclaim to all the 
world that we hold this trust from God, and in its occupancy we 
are prepared to stand or fall as God may appoint. If the critical 
moment has arrived at which the great issue is joined, let us say 
that, in the sight of all perils, we will stand by our trust; and 
God be with the right ! 

The argument which enforces the solemnity of this providen- 
tial trust is simple and condensed. It is bound upon us, then, by 
the principle of self-preservation, that "first law'' which is con- 



8 

tinually asserting its supremacy over all others. Need I pause to 
show how this system of servitude underlies and supports our 
material interests ? That our wealth consists in our lands and 
in the serfs who till them ? That from the nature of our pro- 
ducts they can only be cultivated by labor which must be con- 
trolled in order to be certain ? That any other than a tropical 
race must faint and wither beneath a tropical sun ? Need I pause 
to show how this system is interwoven with our entire social 
fabric ? That these slaves form parts of our households, even as 
our children; and that, too, through a relationship recognized and 
sanctioned in the scriptures of God even as the other ? Must I 
pause to show how it has fashioned our modes of life, and deter- 
mined all our habits of thought and feeling, and moulded the 
very type of our civilization ? How then can the hand of violence 
be laid upon it without involving our existence ? The so-called 
free states of this country are working out the social problem 
under conditions peculiar to themselves. These conditions are 
sufficiently hard, and their success is too uncertain, to excite in 
us the least jealousy of their lot. With a teeming population, 
which the soil cannot support — with their wealth depending upon 
arts, created by artificial wants — with an eternal friction between 
the grades of their society — with their labor and their capital 
grinding against each other like the upper and nether mill- 
stones — with labor cheapened and displaced by new mechanical 
inventions, bursting more asunder the bonds of brotherhood; amid 
these intricate perils we have ever given them our sympathy 
and our prayers, and have never sought to weaken the foundations 
of their social order. God grant them complete success in the 
solution of all their perplexities ! We, too, have our responsi- 
bilities and trials; but they are all bound up in this one institu- 
tion, which has been the object of such unrighteous assault 
through five and twenty years. If we are true to ourselves 
we shall, at this critical juncture, stand by it and work out" 
our destiny. 

This duty is bound upon us ag-ain as the constituted guardians 
of the slaves themselves. Our lot is not more implicated in theirs, 
than is their lot in ours; in our mutual relations we survive or 
perish together. The worst foes of the black race are those who 
have intermeddled on their behalf. We know better than others 
that every attribute of their character fits them for dependence 
and servitude. By nature the most affectionate and loyal of all 
races beneath the sun, they are also the most helpless : and no 



calamity can befal them greater than the loss of that protection 
they enjoy under this patriarchal system. Indeed the experi- 
ment has been grandly tried of precipitating them upon freedom 
which they know not how to enjoy; and the dismal results are 
before us in statistics that astonish the world. With the fairest 
portions of the earth in their possession and with the advantage 
of a long discipline as cultivators of the soil, their constitutional 
indolence has converted the most beautiful islands of the sea into 
a howling waste. It is not too much to say that if the South 
should* at this moment, surrender every slave, the wisdom of 
the entire world, united in solemn council, conld no1 solve the 
question of their disposal. Their transportation to Africa, even 
if it were feasible, would be but the most refined cruelty; they 
must perish with starvation before they could have time to re- 
lapse into their primitive barbarism. Their residence here, in 
the presence of the vigorous Saxon race, would be but the signal 
for their rapid extermination before they had time to waste ' 
away through listlessness, filth, and vice. Freedom would be their 
doom; and equally from both they call upon us, their providential 
guardians, to be protected. I know this argument will be scoffed 
abroad as the hypocritical cover thrown over our own cupidity 
and selfishness; but every southern master knoAvs its truth and 
feels its power. My servant, whether born in my house or 
bought with my money, stands to me in the relation of a child. 
Though providentially owing me service, which, providentially, I 
am bound to exact, he is, nevertheless, my brother and my friend; 
and I am to him a guardian and a father. He leans upon me for 
protection, for counsel, and for blessing; and so long as the rela- - 
tion continues no power, but the power of almighty God, shall 
come between him and me. Were there no argument but this, 
it binds upon us the providential duty of preserving the rela- 
tion that we may save him from a doom worse than death. 

It is a duty which we owe, further, to the civilized world. It 
is a remarkable fact that during these thirty years of unceasing 
warfare against slavery, and while a lying spirit has inflamed the 
world against us, that world has grown more and more depen- 
dent upon it for sustenance and wealth. Every tyro knows that 
all branches of industry fall back upon the soil. We must come, 
every one of us, to the bosom of this great mother for nourish- 
ment. In the happy partnership which has grown up in provi- 
dence between the tribes of this confederacy, our industry has 
been concentrated upon agriculture. To the North we have 



10 

cheerfully resigned all the profits arising from manufacture and 
commerce. Those profits they have, for the most part, fairly earned, 
and we have never begrudged them. We have sent them our 
sugar and bought it back when refined; we have sent them our 
cotton and bought it back when spun into thread or woven into 
cloth. Almost every article we use, from the shoe-lachet to the 
most elaborate and costly article of luxury, they have made and 
we have bought; and both sections have thriven by the part- 
nership, as no people ever thrived before since the first shining 
of the sun. So literally true are the words of the text, ad- 
dressed by Obadiah to Edom, " All the men of our confederacy, 
the men that were at peace with us, have eaten our bread at the 
very time they have deceived and laid a wound under us." Even 
beyond — this the enriching commerce, which has built the splen- 
did cities and marble palaces, of England as well as of America, 
has been largely established upon the products of our soil; and 
the blooms upon southern fields gathered by black hands, have 
fed the spindles and looms of Manchester and Birmingham not 
less than of Lawrence and Lowell. Strike now a blow at this 
system of labor and the world itself totters at the stroke. Shall 
we permit that blow to fall ? Do we not owe it to civilized man 
to stand in the breach and stay the uplifted arm ? If the blind 
Samson lays hold of the pillars which support the arch of the 
world's industry, how many more will be buried beneath its ruins 
than the lords of the Philistines ? " Who knoweth whether 
we are not come to the kingdom for such a time as this." 

Last of all, in this great struggle, we defend the cause of God 
and religion. The abolition spirit is undeniably atheistic. The 
demon which erected its throne upon the guillotine in the days of 
Robespierre and Marat, which abolished the Sabbath and wor- 
shiped reason in the person of a harlot, yet survives to work 
other horrors, of which those of the French revolution are but the 
type. Among a people so generally religious as the American, 
a _ disguise must be worn ; but it is the same old threadbare 
disguise of the advocacy of human rights. From a thousand 
Jacobin clubs here, as in France, the decree has gone forth which 
strikes at God by striking at all subordination and law. Avail- 
ing itself of the morbid and misdirected sympathies of men, it 
has entrapped weak consciences in the meshes of its treachery ; 
and now, at last, has seated its high priest upon the throne, clad 
in the black garments of discord and schism, so symbolic of its 
ends. Under this specious cry of reform, it demands -that every 
evil shall be corrected, or society become a wreck— the sun must 
be stricken from the heavens, if a spot is found upon his disc. 
The Most High, knowing his own power which is infinite, and 
his own wisdom which is unfathomable, can afford to be patient. 
But these self-constituted reformers must quicken the activity of 
Jehovah or compel his abdication. In their furious haste, they 
trample upon obligations sacred as any which can bind the con- 
science. It is time to reproduce the obsolete idea that Provi- 
dence must govern man, and not that man should control Provi- 



11 

dcnce. In the imperfect state of human society, it pleases Gadto 
allow evils which check others that are greater. As m the 
physical world, objects are moved forward, noi by a single force, 
hut by the composition of forces ; so in his moral administration, 

there are checks and balances whose intimate relations are com- 
prehended only by himself, lint what reck they of this— these 
fierce zealots who undertake to drive the chariot ol the sun i 
working out the single and false idea which rules them like a 
nightmare, they dash athwart the spheres, utterly disregarding the 
delicate mechanism of Providence; which moves on, wheels 
within wheels, with pivots and balances and springs, which 
the "Meat designer alone can control. This spirit ol atheism, 
Which knows no God who tolerates evil, no Bible which sanc- 
tions law, and no conscience that can be bound by oaths and 
covenants', has selected us for its victims, and slavery lor its 
issue. Its banner-cry rings out already upon the air— "liberty, 
equality, fraternity," which simply Interpreted mean bondage, con- 
fiscation and massacre. With its tricolor waving m the breeze,— 
it waits to inaugurate its reign of terror. To the South the high 
position is assigned of defending, before all nations, the caused 
all religion and of all truth. In this trust, we are resisting the 
power which wars against constitutions and laws and compacts, 
against Sabbaths and sanctuaries, against the family, the state, 
and the church; which blasphemously invades the prerogatives - 
of God, and rebukes the Most High for the errors of his adminis- 
tration; which, if it cannot snatch the reins of empire from his grasp, 
will lay the universe in ruins at his feet. Is it possible that we 
shall decline the onset ? . 

This argument, then, which sleeps over the entire circle ol our 
relations, 'touches the four cardinal points of duty to ourselves to 
our slaves, to the world, and to almighty God. It establishes the 
nature and solemnity of our present trust, to preserve and transmit 
our existing system of domestic servitude, with the right, unchal- 
lenged by man, to go and root itself wherever Providence and nature 
may carry it. This trust we will discharge' in the face ol the worst 
possible peril. Though war bo the aggregation of all evils yet, 
should the madness of the hour appeal to the arbitration oi the 
sword, we will not shrink even fro,,, the baptism of fire. II mo- 
dern crusaders stand in serried ranks upon some plain ol hsdnie- 
lon, there shall we be in defense of our trust. Not till the last 

man has fallen behind the last rampart, shall it drop from our hands; 
and then only in surrender to the God who gave it. 

Against this institution a system of aggression has been pursued 
through the last thirty years. Initiated by a few ianatics, who 
were at first despised, it has gathered strength from opposition 
until it has assumed its present gigantic proportions. No man has 
thoughtfully watched the progress of this controversy without being 
convinced that the crisis must at length come. Some lew, perhaps, 
have hoped against hope, that the gathering imposthume mighl be 

dispersed, and the poison be eliminated from the body politic hy 
healthful remedies. But the delusion has scarcely been cherished 



12 

by those who have studied the history of fanaticism in its path of 
blood and fire through the ages of the past. The moment must 
arrive when the conflict must be joined, and victory decide for one 
or the other. As it has been a war of legislative tactics, and not 
of physical force, both parties have been manceuvering for a posi- 
tion; and the embarrassment has been, whilst dodging amidst 
constitutional forms, to make an issue that should be clear, simple, 
and tangible. Such an issue is at length presented in the result 
of the recent Presidental election. Be it observed, too, that it is 
an issue made by the North, not by the South; upon whom, there- 
fore, must rest the entire guilt of the present disturbance. With 
a choice between three national candidates, who have more or 
less divided the votes of the South, the North, with unexampled 
unanimity, have cast their ballot for a candidate who is sectional, 
wlw represents a party that is sectional, and the ground* of that 
sectionalism, prejudice against the established and constitutional 
rights and immunities and institutions of the South. What does 
this declare— what can it declare, but that from henceforth this is 
to be a government of section over section; a government using 
constitutional forms only to embarrass and divide the section ruled, 
and as_ fortresses through whose embrasures the cannon of legis- 
lation is to be employed in demolishing the guaranteed institutions 
of the South ? What issue is more direct, concrete, intelligible than 
this ? _ I thank God that, since the conflict must be joined, the re- 
sponsibility of this issue rests not with us, who have ever acted 
upon the defensive; and that it is so disembarrassed and simple 
that the feeblest mind can understand it. 

The question with the South to-day is not what issue shall 
s/ie make, but how shall she meet that which is prepared for her ? 
Is it possible that we can hesitate longer than a moment ? In 
our natural recoil from the perils of revolution, and with our 
clinging fondness for the memories of the past, we may perhaps 
look around for something to soften the asperity of this issue, 
for some ground on which we may defer the day of evil, for some 
hope that the gathering clouds may not burst in fury upon the land. 
It is alleged, for example, that the President elect has been chosen 
by a fair majority under prescribed forms. But need I say, to 
those ^ who have read history, that no despotism is more absolute 
than that of an unprincipled democracy, and no tyranny more gall- 
ing than that exercised through constitutional formulas ? But the 
plea is idle, when the very question we debate is the perpetuation 
of that constitution now converted into an engine of oppression, 
and the continuance of that union which is henceforth to be our 
condition of vassalage. I say it with solemnity and pain, this 
Union of our forefathers is already gone. It existed but in 
mutual confidence, the bonds of which were ruptured in the late 
election. Though its form should be preserved,, it is, in fact, de- 
stroyed. We may possibly entertain the project of reconstruct- 
ing it; but it will be another union, resting upon other than past 
guarantees. " In that we say a new covenant we have made the 
first old, and that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to varis'i 



13 

away" — "as a vesture it is folded up." For myself I say that, 
under the rule which threatens us, 1 throw off the yoke of this 
Union as readily as did our ancestors the yoke of King George III., 
and for causes immeasurably strongerthan those pleaded in their 
celebrated declaration. 

It is softly whispered, too, that the successful competitor for the 
throne protests and avers his purpose to administer thegovern- 
ment ill a conservative and national spirit. Allowing him all credit 
for personal integrity in these protestations, he is, in this mutter, 
nearly as impotent for good as he is competent for evil. He is 
nothing more than a figure upon the political chess-board — whether 
pawn or knight or king, will hereafter appear — hut still a silent 
figure upon the checkered squares, moved by the hands of an un- 
seen player. That player is the party to which 1 wes his eleva- 
tion; a party that has signalized its history by the most unblush- 
ing perjuries. AVhat faith can be placed in the protestations of 
men who openly avow that their consciences are too sublimated to 
be restrained by the obligation of covenants or by the sanctity of 
oaths? No: w r ehave seen the trail of the serpent five and twenty 
years in our Eden; twined now in the branches of the forbidden 
tree, we feel the pangs of death already begun as its hot breath is 
upon our cheek, hissing out the original falsehood, "Ye shall not 
surely die." 

Another suggests that even yet the Electors, alarmed by these 
demonstrations of the South, may not cast the black ball which 
dooms their country to the executioner. It is a forlorn hope. 
Whether we should counsel such breach of faith in them or take 
refuge in their treachery — whether such a result would give a 
President chosen by the people according to the constitution — are 
points I will not discuss. But that it would prove a cure for any 
of our ills who can believe ! It is certain that it would, with some 
show of justice, exasperate a party sufficiently ferocious ; that it 
would doom us to four years of increasing strife and bitterness; 
and that the crisis must come at last under issues possibly not 
half so clear as the present. Let us not desire to shift the day 
of trial by miserable subterfuges of this sort. The issue is upon 
us; let us meet it like men and end this strife forever. 

But some quietist whispers, yet further, this majority is acciden- 
tal and has been swelled by accessions of men simply opposed 
to the existing administration; the party is utterly heterogeneous 
and must be shivered into fragments by its own success. I con- 
fess, frankly, this suggestion has staggered me more than any 
other, and I sought to take refuge therein. Why should we not wait 
and see the effect of success itself upon a party whose elements 
might devour each other in the very distribution of the spoil? 
Two considerations have dissipated the fallacy before me. The first 
is, that, however mixed the party, abolitionism is clearly its inform- 
ing and actuating soul; and fanaticism is a blood-hound that never 
bolts its track when it has once lapped blood. The elevation of 
their candidate is far from being the consummation of their aims. 
It is only the beginning of that consummation; and, if all history 



14 

be not a He, there will be cohersion enough till the end of the 
Winning is reached, and the dreadful banquet of slaughter and 
ruin shall glut the appetite. The second consideration is a pnn- 
S W hich I cannot blink. It is nowhere denied that the first 
article in the creed of the now dominant party is the restriction 
of slavery within its present limits. It is distinctly avowed by 
their organs, and in the name of their elected chieftain; as will 
annear from the following extract from an article written to 
Sfy the South and to reassure its fears: "There can be no 
S whatever in the mind of any man that Mr. Lincoln re*ai*i 
slavery as a moral, social, and political evil, and that it should 
be dealt with as such by the Federal Government in every ^in- 
stance where it is called upon to deal with it all. On this point 
there is no room for question— and there need be no misgivings 
as to his official action. The whole influence of the Executive 
Department of the Government, while in his hands, will be thrown 
ag-ainst the extension of slavery into the new territories of the 
Union, and the re-opening of the African slave-trade. On these 
points he will make no compromise nor yield one hair s breadth 
to coercion from any quarter or in any shape. He does not ac- 
cede to the alleged decision of the Supreme Court, that the Con- 
stitution places slaves upon the footing of other property, and 
protects them as such wherever its jurisdiction extends, nor will 
he be in the least degree, governed or controlled by it m his exe- 
cutive action. ' He will do all in his power, personally and offici- 
ally by the direct exercise of the powers ot his office, and the in- 
direct influence inseparable from it, to arrest the tendency to 
make slavery national and perpetual, and to place it in pre- 
cisely the same position which it held in the early days of the 
Republic, and in the view of the founders of the Government" 
Now what enigmas may be couched in this last sentence— the 
sphinx 'which uttered them can perhaps resolve; but the sen- 
tence in which they occur is as big as the belly of the Trojan 
horse which laid the city of Priam in ruins. 

These utterances we have heard so long that they fall stale upon 
the ear • but never before have they had such significance — 
Hitherto they have come from Jacobin conventicles and pulpits, 
from the rostrum, from the hustings, and from the halls of our 
national Congress: but always as the utterances of irresponsible 
men or associations of men. But now the voice comes from the 
throne- already, before clad with the sanctities of office, ere the 
anointing oil is poured upon the monarch's head, the decree has 
o-one forth that the institution of Southern slavery shall be con- 
strained within assigned limits. Though nature and Providence 
should send forth its branches like the Banyan tree, to take root 
in congenial soil, here is a power superior to both, that says it 
shall wither and die within its own charmed circle. 

What say you to this, to whom this great providentiaHrust 
of conserving slavery is assigned? "Shall the throne of iniquity 
have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?" 
It is this that makes the crisis. Whether we will or not, this is 



15 

the historic moment when the fate of this institution hangs sus- 
pended in the balance. Decide either way, it is the momenl of 
our destiny — the only thing affected by the decision is the com- 
plexion of that destiny. It the Smith bows before this throne, she 
accepts the decree of restriction and ultimate extinction, which is 
made the condition of her homage. 

As it appears to me, the course to be pursued in this emer- 
gency is that which has already been inaugurated. Let the 
people in all the Southern states, in solemn council assembled, 
reclaim the powers they have delegated. Let those conventions 
be composed of men whose fidelity has been approved — men who 
bring the wisdom, experience and firmness of age to suppori and 
announce principles which have long been matured. Let these ('.in- 
ventions decide firmly and solemnly what they will do with this 
great trust committed to their hands. Let them pledge each other 
in sacred covenant, to uphold and perpetuate what they cannot 
resign without dishonor and palpable ruin. Let thorn further, take 
all the necessary steps looking to separate and independent exis- 
tence; and initiate measures for framing - a new and homogeneous 
confederacy. Thus, prepared for every contingency, let the crisis 
come. Paradoxical as it may seem, if there be any way to save, 
or rather to re-construct, the anion of our forefathers, it is this. 
Perhaps, at the last moment, the conservative portions of the 
North may awake to see the abyss into which they are about to 
plunge. Perchance they may arise and crash out forever, the abo- 
lition hydra, and cast it into a grave from which there shall never 
be a resurrection. 

Thus, with restored confidence, we may be rejoined a united and 
happy people. But, before God, I believe that nothing will 
effect this but the line of policy which the South has been 
compelled in self-preservation to adopt. I confess frankly, I 
am not sanguine that such ah auspicious result will be reached. 
Partly, because I do not see how new guarantees are to be 
grafted upon the Constitution, nor how, if grafted, they can be 
more binding than those which have already been trampled under 
foot; but chiefly, because I do not see how such guarantees can 
be elicited from the people at the North. It cannot be disguised, 
that almost to a man, they are anti-slavery where they are not abo- 
lition. A whole generation has been educated to look upon the 
system with abhorrence as a national blot. They hope, and look, 
and pray for its extinction within a reasonable time, and cannot 
be satislied unless things are seen drawing to that conclusion. 
We, on the contrary, as its constituted guardians, can demand 
nothing less than that it should be left open to expansion, sub- 
ject to no limitations save those imposed by God and nature. I 
fear the antagonism is too great, and the conscience of both par- 
ties too deeply implicated to allow such a composition of the strife. 
Nevertheless since it is within the range of possibility in the 
Providence of God, I would not shut out the alternative. 

Should it fail, what remains but that Ave say to each other, 
calmly and kindly, what Abraham said to Lot : " Let there be 



16 

no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between mj' herd- 
men and thy herdmen, for we be brethren : Is not the whole land 
before thee ? Separate thyself I pray thee, from me — if thou will 
take the left hand, then I will go to the right, or if thou depart to 
the right hand, then I will go to the left." Thus, if we cannot 
save the Union, we may save the inestimable blessings it en- 
shrines; if we cannot preserve the vase, we will preserve the pre- 
cious liquor it contains. 

In all this, I speak for the North no less than for the South ; 
for upon our united and determined resistance at this moment, 
depends the salvation of the whole country — in saving ourselves 
we shall save the North from the ruin she is madly drawing down 
upon her own head. 

The position of the South is at this moment sublime. If she 
has grace given her to know her hour she will save herself, the 
country, and the world. It will involve, indeed, temporary pros- 
tration and distress ; thedjdtes of Holland must be cut to save her 
from the troops of Philip. But I warn my countrymen the his- 
toric moment once passed, never returns. If she will arise in her 
majesty, and speak now as with the voice of one man, she will 
roll back for all time, the curse that is upon her. If she succumbs 
now, she transmits that curse as an heirloom to posterity. We 
may, for a generation, enjoy comparative ease, gather up our 
feet in our beds, and die in peace ; but our children will go forth 
beggared from the homes of their fathers. Fishermen will cast 
their nets where your proud commercial navy now rides at anchor, 
and dry them upon the shore now covered with your bales of 
merchandise. Sapped, circumvented, undermined, the institutions 
of your soil will be overthrown ; and within five and twenty years, 
the history of St. Domingo will be the record of Louisiana. If 
dead men's bones can tremble, ours will move under the muttered 
curses of sons and daughters, denouncing the blindness and love 
of ease which have left them an inheritance of woe. 

I have done my duty under as deep a sense of responsibility 
to God and man, as I have ever felt. Under a full conviction that 
the salvation of the whole country is depending upon the action 
of the South, I am impelled to deepen the sentiment of resistance 
in the Southern mind, and to strengthen the current now flowing 
towards a union of the South, in defense of her chartered rights. 
It is a duty which I shall not be called to repeat, for such awful 
junctures do not occur twice in a century. Bright and happy days 
are yet before us ; and before another political earthquake shall 
shake the continent, I hope to be " where the wicked cease from 
troubling and where the weary are at rest." 

It only remains to say, that whatever be the fortunes of the 
South, I accept them for my own. Born upon her soil, of a father 
thus born before me — from an ancestry that occupied it while 
yet it was a part of England's possessions — she is in every sense, 
my mother. I shall die upon her bosom — she shall know no peril, 
but it is my peril — no conflict, but it is my conflict — and no abyss 
of ruin, into which I shall not share her fall. May theLord God 
cover her head in this her day of battle ! 



54 



VI 



%s .-'J 












//i , ^ <> - 












* a* *v. •• 





-^ . 



<1> x* 




































































































































































































































































































































ii ijijjjjijj 



















































